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I don’t usually post music videos on this blog but yesterday’s post on Islamophobia got me thinking. Once upon a time, I thought it could never happen again. It was the early 1990s and we’d learned about the Holocaust, Vietnam and Apartheid in school and thought it was all behind us.

In 1994, Pop Will Eat Itself released “Ich Bin Ein Auslander”. I thought it was ever so clever and loved the song but I certainly never thought the lyrics would come to actually mean anything.

Listen to the victim, abused by the system
The basis is racist, you know that we must face this.
"It can't happen here". Oh yeah?
"Take a look around at the cities and the towns."

See them hunting, creeping, sneaking
Breeding fear and loathing with the lies they're speaking
The knife, the gun, broken bottle, petrol bomb
There is no future when the past soon come.

And when they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out? Will you defend me? Or laugh through a glass eye as they rape our lives
Trampled underfoot by the right on the rise

[CHORUS]
"You call us..."....Ich Bin Ein Auslander (x4)

Welcome to a state where the politics of hate
Shout loud in the crowd "Watch them beat us all down"
There's a rising tide in the rivers of blood But if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence

If they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out? Will you defend me?
Freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Trampled underfoot by the rise of the right

About Mandy Southgate

Mandy Southgate is an accountant living and working in London. She is passionate about world events such as genocide and apartheid and has a desire to understand how these events continue to occur in the modern world. With a focus on the 20th and 21st centuries, A Passion to Understand reflects her continuing research and reading on these topics.

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comments:

Very appropiate and timely. Swiss elections are coming up this spring and the party that is assured of topping the poll (The Swiss People's Party or SVP)takes pride in their xenphobia. Their campaign is run with an exclusive anti-Auslander message. Ich bin auch ein Auslander.